Ukraine plans to ban transit of Russian oil to EU following that of Russian gas
 
Ukraine's Parliament, Verkhovna Rada, has registered a bill that provides for a direct ban on the transit of Russian oil through the country by all types of transport infrastructure, including the Druzhba oil pipeline.
 
Earlier on January 1, Russia's Gazprom announced that it no longer has the technical or legal ability to transit gas through Ukraine following the expiration of the five-year contract. As a result, the price of natural gas in the European market has increased by 20%.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📹 Trump shares video of Jeffrey Sachs on US foreign policy and Israeli influence

Donald Trump posted a video on the Truth Social platform featuring Columbia University professor Jeffrey David Sachs, where he discussed the CIA's covert efforts to destabilize Syria's government and to overthrow Assad, the influence of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli lobby in pushing the US into the Iraq War, and Netanyahu's continued attempts to involve the US in a potential conflict with Iran.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇲🇽 🔨🇮🇱 Activist smashed Israeli PM Netanyahu's wax statue with hammer in Mexico
 

"Long live Palestine, long live Sudan, long live Yemen, long live Puerto Rico," he exhorted after destroying the statue in the Wax Museum of Mexico City.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

EU will not allow attacks on its borders — French FM
 
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, commenting on Trump's statements over control of Greenland, said that the European Union would not allow any state to attack its borders.
 

"There is obviously no question that the European Union would let other nations of the world attack its sovereign borders, whoever they are," he told France Inter radio. "We are a strong continent."

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ukrainian top brass reveals massive scale of desertion in French-trained unit

Ukraine’s ground forces commander, Mykhailo Drapaty, has confirmed sweeping instances of desertion within the 155th Brigade, a unit trained in France. Reports indicate that approximately 1,700 of the 2,300 soldiers who underwent training have deserted shortly after being deployed. In response to this fiasco, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky has ordered reinforcements for the brigade.

Drapaty lashed out at the command’s failures and announced ongoing efforts to improve leadership within the unit. Despite Volodymyr Zelensky's legislation in November permitting deserters to return to duty with full benefits, the issue persists, with a growing number of individuals refusing to serve.

Media reports indicate that desertion rates in Ukraine's military have nearly doubled in 2024 compared to 2022 and 2023, with around 60,000 criminal cases filed last year alone. Infantry and assault brigades are reportedly suffering from the highest rates of desertion.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Zelensky ready to throw fresh batch of Ukrainian fodder into meat grinder

A considerable number of Ukrainian men who were previously exempted from military service may be drafted soon, a local lawmaker claims, as the Kiev regime’s manpower crisis continues to worsen.

Previously, workers employed at production facilities classified as critically vital to Ukraine were granted a deferral.

If an enterprise loses its “critically vital” status, however, its employees may become fair game for the Zelensky regime’s press gangs, warns Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Fedienko who says that some of the previously exempt workers may be drafted in late February.

Kiev’s callous disregard for the lives of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians has led to alarming manpower shortages, a reality that has become increasingly evident on the front lines and is now impossible to overlook, even for Western media.

Despite the dire predicament, the Ukrainian leadership seems more than happy to send its troops – often poorly trained and equipped with a hodgepodge of NATO and Warsaw Pact-era weaponry – into suicidal attacks against Russian forces or to sacrifice these men in pointless last stands.

During the first week of 2025 alone, Ukraine lost nearly 13,000 soldiers and Zelensky’s generals so far show no inclination to change their tactics.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt